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On the afternoon of October 10, 2008 my mom got news that would change her life forever and make my sister and I question our faith in God. That day I knew the call was coming from either my mom or someone at the doctor. I knew if my mom was on the other line, we were good, but if the call came from someone else, it was bad.

Well around 3 PM, my cell rang. A local number but not my mom’s. When I picked up the phone from my office desk at my job at the time, I could hear my mom hysterically crying in the background. I knew immediately what the person who called for her was about to say. Before the woman on the line could identify herself, I started whimpering – It was positive. My mom was about to begin the fight of her life against breast cancer.

A woman who had been so selfless with my sister and I growing up. Someone who like everyone else was not perfect but had lived for my sister and I since the day she became a mother, was about to have to fight off breast cancer. We knew so little at that point. We had no idea how large the tumor was or what kind of fight she had ahead of her but we knew it wasn’t going to be easy. Immediately after hanging up with the woman I began hysterically crying and called my boss to come in and take over for me. It took her about 10 minutes to get there and when I left I rushed over to my mom’s house. My mom was sitting there on the couch with my sister and the friend who called me. She looked like she had been beaten up. I was so angry. I was so angry at God for giving my mom a cancer that killed so many, mom’s, daughters and grandmothers. Why did she deserve it? I didn’t understand.

Word of course got out that my mom had breast cancer and I started getting random messages on facebook. Some from people I knew, some from people that I didn’t know very well. But people started coming out of the woodwork, with stories about how someone they loved had fought off the disease too. It was awesome. It was like this secret club that almost everyone is a part of, and when you join it, they all supported each other.

The next week the doctor appointments began. The process was long and complex. Some days mom had a “screw cancer” attitude but sometimes she was just ready to give up. I knew I had to stay strong for her and accompanied her on every Doctor appointment that I could. She had to have 3 doctors, a surgeon to remove the tumor, a plastic surgeon for reconstruction and a oncologist for the after-care. She was given the choice – Mastectomy or Lumpectomy. My mom was so scared to lose her breasts completely so she chose a lumpectomy. We learned her cancer was aggressive in nature and probably had only developed in the last couple of months before that. She went through the whole process including the 10 hour surgery and the two day hospital stay. For many, this is the end of treatment. This is where the healing begins for many however not for my mom. Due to the aggressive nature they recommended she undergo chemo, following a regimen of radiation.

The chemo I think was the worst. It almost killed her. After every treatment she would become so weak and sick. She lost all her hair and every time she would recover it would be time to return for another treatment. She lost 10’s of 20’s of pounds and just got sicker and sicker. Finally – she had her last appointment for chemo. This one probably hit her the worst because she was so weak at this point. Next the radiation began which for some is worse but for her nothing was as bad as the chemo. She had pretty much recovered from her surgery and she was cancer free. Her hair began coming back. I was so proud that she had gotten through all of this alive and so happy to still have my mom. Although much skinnier, she was still here and loving life more than she ever had before.

At this point we always knew the cancer could come back but we never imagined it would. Well, almost exactly 2 years later my mom called me after her 6 month checkup. She had a bad mammogram on the other breast. This time it wasn’t as scary for some reason. Not for any of us. We knew she survived it before and was certain she could survive it again. They did the biopsy and again the call came, this time from my mom. Calm and collected. The breast cancer had returned in a less aggressive state than before on the other breast. None of us cried. We all went in with a “Let’s do this” attitude and my mom was ready to fight. Because this was the second time they suggested a Mastectomy and my mom thankfully agreed. She was told with a Mastectomy she would be less likely to have chemo and the recurrence chance would drop to nearly 0%. This surgery was a doozie. In January 2011, I sat down with my mom to setup for her surgery prep. This surgery was going to be a long one. She would go under for what ended up being 16 hours. First she had to have her breast tissue completely removed and then the tissue in her stomach would be moved up to develop her reconstructed breasts. After 16 hours she came back from surgery in body but not in mind. She wasn’t herself almost that entire stay. During the recovery, I stayed there every night while my marriage fell apart due to forces I could no longer control. Recovery this time took longer from the surgery and getting her body back into a shape that felt normal is a fight she is still fighting.

My mom has been cancer free for over a year now. I hope she never has to fight Breast Cancer or any Cancer ever again but they keep very close eye on her. I didn’t write this blog to make you pity me or feel bad for my mom. I wrote this for awareness. My mom had not had a mammogram for over 15 years prior to the one that caught the aggressive cancer in her breast. She went in to try to get approved for a reduction surgery and they caught the cancer. The doctor’s predicted the tumor would have been 10 times it’s size by October 2009. Was it God? Was it coincidence? How did she end up getting that mammogram at the right time? We don’t know. We will never know, but I’m so proud that my mom was able to fight off the deadly disease, not once but twice and I’m confident she would be strong enough to do it again but very hopeful she wont’ have to. The moral of the story is folks, get your mammograms when your supposed to. Cancer doesn’t care who you are or who loves you, it can strike at any time. I hope you…. well learned something. Til next time!

Well, today before coming to work I took my frozen ham chunks and my beans that I soaked all night and I put it in the crockpot. When I get home today, I will peel and cutup my potatoes to put in the skillet to fry/sautee. Making those potatoes are super duper easy and they are amazing. After that I will sit down with Anna, my good friend Crystal and her kids, Sebastian and Olivia and we will eat with very little effort put in by me or anyone else.

Last night, I opened a $1.50, 1lb bag of pinto beans to sort through them with Anna. A good early memory I have of my mother and I, was sitting down with her and sorting through the pinto beans to find the bad ones so we could soak the good ones for the next day’s meal. It sounds REALLY petty and no big deal to anyone but man to me, was it a big deal! So everytime I cook pinto beans usually for Ham n’ Beans, I have Anna sit down and sort through them with me. Even though some “good” beans end up going in the “bad bean pile”, I’m ok with that, because it’s not enough to make a difference and she really feels like she is contributing to our dinner (which she is) so I’m ok with it.

This post is about an ode to crock pots which are great for all mother’s everywhere. I’m not talking about he crockpot meals that you have to start on high and turn them down to low because I HATE those. I work. I work full time. One day I hope to stay home with my kids or at least work less hours or possibly even work from home. But those crock-pot recipes that require you to do something before the 8 hour mark, kinda piss me off. I’m talking about those meals that cook anywhere from like, 8 hours to 12 hours and still be good for the eating. How awesome is that? If we weren’t having potatoes tonight, I literally would have only spent about 10 minutes on the prep to a 100 percent homecooked meal. With those beans, basically the only thing I didn’t do was harvest them out of the ground. And the ham? I didn’t even have to cut it up. I already cut it and froze it like 2 weeks ago. All I had to do was take the beans from the fridge, rinse them, put them in the crockpot, throw on some random seasonings, open the freezer take out the ham, open the foil and drop it in the crockpot, turn it on low and go. I didn’t even have to plug my crockpot in because I use it so much it was already plugged in.
The crockpot isn’t flawless however, there has been many times where I’ve cooked pork chops and other meats on low for 8 hours and they have burnt to a crisp. I don’t know if the freaking thing, runs hot or what? Does anyone have this problem? I need some ideas for some nearly mistake-proof crock pot recipes. I hear you can make lasagna and apple butter and all kinds of other random stuff that you would never expect, but how do I not screw it up? The things that seem to cook the best are the ones surrounded by water because it doesn’t have direct contact with the burning hot dish. Your tips are welcomed and I hope you have some. But…..that is my Ode to the Crockpot.

Now I wanna talk about something else real quick— I like to have readers. I like to know that when I say something that someone is interested in what I have to say. Because of this, I look at my stats. Almost daily. The stats does an interesting breakdown of the days of the week and tells me how many readers I have on a given day. My blog is getting more popular which makes me happy, what confuses me on my stats is this though:

Now I am 100 percent ok with having readers from all over the country and world read my blog, but now my question is, who the heck lives in Belgium? Dear Belgium Dweller, I’d like to know who you are, because that’s pretty freaking cool! Til next time!

Ok – I’m not sure if this is a FYI or if it’s more of a this is what I know, add what you know type of thing. But here goes.

About 3 years ago I read about a program in the news-paper called Angel Food Ministries. My ex and I were having a little bit of trouble buying groceries and Angel Food seemed like something that might help us out. Angel Food was (according to Wikipedia ha) “a scandal-embroiled non-profit organization that provided a monthly food service to over 500,000 families”. When I was thinking about using it, I saw it as a way for us to put the food on the table for an affordable price. Well this company apparently was a non-profit but was getting rich off of these families that were trying save money. Like millions of dollars a year. Well obviously the government didn’t like this so they shut this company down. I never bought from them but considered it for years.

Here recently Robbie and I, regardless of our efforts to not have to have had to cut our grocery budget down a bit. So naturally when we decided this we started looking for cheaper ways to eat. I googled Angel Food Ministries and quickly found they were no more. With a little more research I found another program called Smart Choice Food Source.

Smart Choice Food Source first of all does not present themselves like a ministry or a charity even though a lot of the ordering goes through Christian Based Organizations for distribution. They say that they distribute restaurant quality foods. So naturally my first question on this was – why are you shipping these to families on a fixed budget rather than to restaurants who are willing to pay full price? Well they answer that question. They say: for example that when you order your child chicken nuggets at a restaurant they are all shaped perfectly. When those are produced the nuggets are not always perfect and the imperfect ones that have the same nutritional quality are the ones who get distributed to Second party distributors like Smart Choice. Another example was a manufacturer of pies. Lets say that manufacturer makes 5 million pumpkin pies to be sold to restaurants for Thanksgiving. But if only 4 million are bought they have another 1 million that needs to be distributed and sold, so Smart Source buys those at a discounted rate and are able to extend their discount to their customers.

So they make this box, with meat, and different types of food designed to feed a family of 4 for a week. Well this box has enough food to feed us for like 2 weeks at least because we don’t eat like a family of 4 (obviously). Then they have these little side boxes. The one that struck my fancy was the pasta box and kid box. The kid box I figure will be great for Anna and Robbie (who eats like a kid) and the pasta box will be good for all of us (especially me). So I figure if this is as wonderful as the company says it is, we can eat meals for about 3 weeks on about $81.00. That’s pretty awesome. I don’t want handouts. We aren’t needy. We are just on a budget. If this is something that we can get our belly’s satisfied with I think it might be worth a try. The big kicker and the thing I don’t like about is that you have pre-pay about a week and a half before you actually get the food. So being on a budget this clearly causes a bit of an issue. Because— if we are waiting on food to distribute that we already paid for than in the mean time we have to buy more food which ends up costing us a little more. Once we get started I think it will work ok, but it will cost a little money initially. Have any of you ever used either of these programs? Your thoughts?

The big difference I see between Angel Food and Smart Source is the food might not suck with Smart Source. I remember Angel Food used to have crap like powdered milk. Am I supposed to drink that?

So if I actually commit this month to doing it and the food is good, we might be able to crunch our grocery budget significantly. I’d love to hear anyone’s thoughts on this. Anyways, I guess that’s all today. I hope you learned something new. Til next time!

Happy October Everyone. October is an exciting month! Fall begins (I think {At least the temps change like it’s fall}), most of my shows are in full swing by October, It’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month (Check those boobs!), Halloween (Candy), The time changes (We all get to sleep another hour in the mornings) and the wasps all die or hide (my favorite).

What does everyone have planned for this month? I’m excited because this is Anna’s 4th Halloween and she is really getting to an age where she can enjoy it. I remember being a little kid and trick or treating. I remember coming home from the night and hovering over my candy to ensure my dad didn’t steal any tootsie rolls. I remember my sister who is 6 years older than me tricking me into trading her milky ways for tooth brushes (ass). I remember one year and I think I was about a year older than Anna – it snowed! Like straight up – honest to goodness- snowed! I remember being in my dad’s little camper truck and wearing his huge (to me) ropin’ gloves so my little fingers didn’t freeze off. I’m pretty sure that year I was a witch. I am not only remembering what it feels like to be a kid but enjoying my time as an adult. A few years ago when holidays like Christmas, Halloween and Easter would pass by, I remember being sad that they weren’t as fun as what I remembered them being as when I was a kid. I remember thinking in those years that I would never have that feeling of excitement back. But I was wrong. To see your child go through all that enjoyment and fun is almost as fun as enjoying those holidays as a kid yourself. Not quite, but almost, and much more than I ever expected.

I had a very innocent childhood. Nothing bad really ever happened to me and I never really had any worries. Of course I thought life was pretty intense but looking back I thank god for that innocence. It’s amazing life was like that for me and a lot of people are surprised to hear it. I had parents who divorced when I was 7. My home never felt broken to me though. My parents were both in my life a lot and my parents had a relationship more like a long distance relationship, rather than a divorced one so I never really felt the effects that I think many kids from divorced parents do. Anna’s father and I are divorced as most of you know and I always wonder what kind of childhood we are giving Anna. Is it carefree? Stressful? I hope I’m giving her a childhood somewhat like the one my parents gave me even though it’s quite apparent to everyone including her that we are no longer together. Before I get into too much of a serious talk, I wanna end this blog on a good note. I hope everyone has a wonderful October and you enjoy my blog this month. XO! Lots of post idea for this month coming up so stay tuned in!

There’s this little thing called a Salad Wedge. I, being the out of the loop uncultured girl I am have never heard of a salad wedge until it appeared on Modern Family, like two seasons ago. Anyways, when Robbie and I went on our trip last weekend I discovered on the menu of one of the places we ate a salad wedge. In short a salad wedge is a lettuce wedge with ranch dressing poured over it, sliced cherry tomatoes, bacon bits and bleu cheese crumbles. Bleu cheese crumbles I could eat by the gallon but anyways. So I ordered this wedge and and this thing was WHOPPING large. LIke it’s a quarter of a head of salad, maybe even a 1 third. You think you can cut off chunks of the wedge with a freaking side of a fork but no, you have to straight up get your steak knife out and saw it like a piece of tough meat. So when it occurred to me to write a blog about my experience with a salad wedge I decided to google it, and luckily, lunch is nearing because I’m seriously hankering for a salad wedge or something edible in general. This salad that I ate was kinda the bomb diggity so I thought it would be nice to share….

It took me a bit because I couldn’t decide which recipe to use. The wedge salad has many variations but with my experience I love the recipes from food.com and I’ll leave it here for you while I go have my lunch. It has all this silliness about homemade dressing, I’d buy a bottle of hidden valley and call it good. Also it wants you to cook 6 slices of bacon. I, would just buy a package of pre-made Oscar Meyer bacon bits but that’s just the kind of woman I am. If you have too much time on your hands and your really extra domestic you may wanna go homemade but I love me some Hidden Valley. Hope you enjoy it!

1
Place lettuce wedge on a salad plate. Add grape tomato halves and onion on top of wedge.
2
Sprinkle with crumbled bacon, crumbled blue cheese and toasted pecan pieces.
3
Dressing: Mix ingredients and allow to sit for 30 minutes or more for flavors to meld. Drizzle on top of salad.
4
Enjoy!

Well good morning friends! I was awfully tired this morning and had to break down for some coffee. Second cup in 9 weeks, not too bad huh? Well now baby is in there doing the Macarena. I’ve read online and many sites say you can’t feel the baby until about 15 weeks but it just so happens I could see Anna poking me around 15 and could feel her poking me around 13 so I don’t wanna hear that it’s just gas in there having it’s own Saturday Night Fever because that baby is going wild. To those of you who are thinking “she shouldn’t be having caffeine” I say to you: Oh my gosh, Th…ank YOU! Are you SURE? I had NO idea. My doctor said it was fine, thank god you are here to save me from-what is it exactly the caffeine will do?

Let me just share with you my most recent hormonal action. Because to be honest even though I reacted a little crazy I think my argument had some merit. Yesterday I was talking about how it makes me mad that everyone thinks the dad of a baby in a belly should get one last hoo-rah before the baby is born but so few say much about a hoo-rah for mom. Everyone says “yeah he needs to have a weekend at the casino or a weekend hunting trip with his buds”. Ummm so Mommy gets to stay back where it’s hard for her to sleep in the FIRST place and impossible while he’s not there while dad gets his last hoo-rah? Isn’t dad getting his last hoo-rah for the nine months he he is experiencing the absence of puking, crying, constipation, tossing and turning, peeing 4 times a night, not having to go through major surgery and lacking a massive scar on his belly from the removal of an 8 lb+ child a pretty big hoo-rah? I’m just saying, if dad get’s one, Mom’s should be twice as expensive and lovely. Mom getting a last hoo-rah is a little hard first of all because of fetal alcohol syndrome and almost everyone associates hoo-rahing with alcohol. Anyways I started crying when I was talking about this. But really, why is that fair? Where the hell is my hoo-rah? Just wondering.

So I read that article that I got all excited about yesterday and I didn’t get to tell you about my weekend. Saturday morning Robbie and I rose early to head to Branson/Eureka Springs for the weekend. The drive down there was gorgeous. I had to stop exactly 3 times to pee and Robbie was thrilled. Once we got down there I was so surprised. Eureka is this tiny little town of houses perched within the cutout rocks and “two lane/two way” roads with barely enough room for one car. What surprised me about it was the way it looked. It almost reminds me of what I would imagine an old European Village to look like. I honestly was waiting to see little gnomes strolling around it’s narrow brick streets I expected to be coming into a downtown-ozark look but that wasn’t the case at all. After driving around for about 30 minutes and Robbie assuming every male walking without a female was a homosexual we found parking. Now, he wouldn’t admit it but I know for a fact that even he had some difficulty getting parallel parked on that hill and who wouldn’t? The town was adorable and pleasant and had all kinds of cute little shops. Some pricey, some not too bad and we were able to buy a few little souvenirs for Anna and had an amazing cheap little pizza lunch down there. Then we headed to our cabin. It’s a new resort down on Table Rock that was a sweet little place because the couple that owns it bought it about two years ago and you can tell they poured their heart and soul into it. Our little cabin wasn’t big but it was cute and cozy with the beds giving a little bit of a lot to desire but it wasn’t a bad place at all. That evening we went to the landing in Branson, walked the boardwalk and even got to witness a proposal on the lake which was actually my second one that I’ve gotten to see. Thankfully so considering I will probably be waiting years before I experience one of my own – just kidding…. kind of ;).

Sunday we woke up a little tired but relaxed and ready to go lay around at home. When we got back home I was ridiculously productive which tells me I had a good weekend overall. Now it’s the work week and we are back but tomorrow is hump day and another Saturday is quickly approaching.

I think Robbie and I found our Halloween costume’s for his parent’s first annual Halloween party. I’m not gonna say what it is but is it inappropriate for Robbie to show up without his shirt because a shirt will ruin his costume? I on the other hand will be completely clothed despite what many pregnancy costumes entail (a bare painted belly), not dissing anyone but I’m just not confident enough to party down with my belly out, pregnant or not. Anyways, I’d like your opinions on this whole topless thing for Robbie. Mind you, he’s a hairy guy which will apply to his costume nicely. I guess that’s all for today. Hope you enjoyed!

Well Howdy! I hope everyone had an awesome weekend! I know I did! I thought with the eventful weekend I had in the tiny elf town of Eureka Springs there couldn’t possibly be anything else I would want to talk to about today. However, there is. It’s called “purple crying” and I stumbled onto this while reading the blog “pregnant chicken”.

Basically there’s this stage that almost every baby goes through where they cry. You change them, you feed them, you bathe them, you rock them, you swing them and STILL the baby will NOT quit crying. It’s believed to be between 2 weeks old and 3 months old (The most common age for shaken baby syndrome) and it’s awful because nothing you do for this screaming child works. Anna went through a few minor bouts of this and one major one and it was the second most helpless feelings I’ve had as a parent and drove me to crying too.

It was one cold January (I believe) morning in 2008. Anna woke up that day in a mood, everything we did she would fuss about. Fortunately her dad was home that day (I’m sure he remembers this too) so I had the help of him. Eventually fussing turned to crying and by lunch crying turned to screaming bloody murder. We did everything we could, we tried a walk, we tried a bath, we tried a clean diaper, we tried letting her go naked, formula, swing, bouncer, NOTHING would work. The roads I believe were icey that day but finally we decided to try a nice car ride to Wal-Mart. I sat in the backseat with my screaming baby ready to scratch my ears off because nothing I did for her was helping. Finally, she fell asleep as we were pulling into the store. As her dad pulled up to the front to let me out several people were behind us and me being the new mom I was, was in a rush. I wanted to rush in to get her the binkie she needed in case she woke up. I shut the door normally and she woke up! OMG! I felt like such an idiot. She immediately started screaming again and when I came back out she was still screaming. We got her home, we tried calling the doctor, the in-laws and my mom who worked about an hour from our apartment at the time. At this point of course everyone was yelling COLIC BABY and I just didn’t know because I was a new mom. Finally my mom got there probably around 3:30 and Anna was still screaming. My mom scooped her up, swaddled her, stuck a binkie in her mouth, cradled her head in her hands, layed her on her lap so she fit safely in the small dip on her lap and swayed her from left to right making a “ch ch ch ch ch” sound over and over and over “ch ch ch ch”. Which you would think would be annoying but I was just so thankful she was no longer screaming. Anna fell into a daze after about 30 minutes and then into a sleep. Then my mom transferred Anna from her lap to her swing and Anna lay fast asleep. I figured “boy you done it now! she’s gonna wake up!” My mom sat there sulking in her success for a few minutes and told me to call her if I needed anything after she left. After that, her dad and I must have sat there in silence waiting for her to awake screaming again but she didn’t. She didn’t wake up for about 5-6 hours and when she did, she was fine. No fit, no screaming, just normal newborn to be expected things and I was thankful.

I will never forget this story because I was terrified. I was a new mom, still recovering from surgery and couldn’t figure out what on earth was wrong with my little baby that I was ready to (as Amy from pregnant chicken says) dropkick her off the front lawn. I remember after the major crying incident I told my mother that I had found some relaxation techniques to keep myself from wanting to drop Anna off the balcony. I remember her snapping at me and saying I should never say anything like that, so reading the article about the purple crying stage told me that maybe I wasn’t crazy for feeling so helpless and out of sorts. Amy (Author of Pregnant Chicken) also says how she never understood how shaking a baby could even be thought up, until she had a baby of her own. She is EXACTLY right. I thought only monsters were capable but once you your screaming baby in your arms that you have NO Idea what to do with, you see where it could happen. Sometimes, walking away or taking a break for just a few minutes, is okay. Its ALWAYS better than hurting your baby and knowing about the purple crying stage I think will help me cope better with this next child when nothing and I mean NOTHING will make him/her stop. Read the article now (Pregnant Chicken: My Baby Won’t Stop Crying), really, because when your in that position and you understand what’s going on, I think it may make it a bit easier for you too. Hope you enjoyed and spread the word!

It’s Friday. I’d love to say my day was awesome and I can’t wait for the weekend. You got the 2nd part right. I can’t wait for the weekend but this day has not been awesome and right now I just kind of have a sourpuss outlook on the whole day.

My day starts out with a call from the collection agency of my previous lender on my Saturn (my old car). They called to tell me they haven’t gotten payment on the Saturn yet from the dealership after over 3 weeks and they have to have a payment by the 28th or my Saturn is at risk of repossession. Okaaaaaay. Funny thing Old Lender, I don’t even know where the hell my old damn car is!!!!!! So with that being said, how on earth did they plan to repossess it? So first I call the dealership where I got my car with plans to demand an explanation. That is if I could talk to someone other than someone who says “operator” at the time of pickup. So I go through 3 people and finally it sounds like I’m going to get to someone who knows what they are talking about. VOICEMAIL! OF A LADY! A LADY WHO HAS IGNORED 2 PREVIOUS VOICEMAILS! UGH! Youngblood starts slowly to plummet to the bottom of my “angie’s list”. So I hang up and jump on their website and find a chat with someone on there named Aeden. Aeden tells me management will get ahold of me promptly regarding the matter. NOONE calls me. So then I call them again, asking for the pre-owned part of the dealership and I talk to a Brad. Brad tells me he will check into this and call me back in 5 minutes. Of course I don’t believe him because of the run around I’ve already been given, but sure! Then about 15 minutes later Brad calls me back to tell me the check for the payoff has been sent off to my old lender and there’s nothing to worry about. Ummmm! Yes there is! They are saying they haven’t gotten it. Then I finally get an email from my stupid old lender saying he has talked to Youngblood and the check is on it’s way. Everything is ok on his end. I HATE YOU YOUNGBLOOD AND GREAT SOUTHERN! Your both stupid! Good thing that miscarriage from stress is basically an urban legend you jerks! I have been stressing all day and then you both act like it’s no big deal. Like you haven’t stressed me out all damn day.

So the weekend. I’m going on a baby-moon – sorta. A baby-moon is getaway that you go on before the baby is born as kind of a last hoo-rah of alone time. Well since I have about another 28 weeks to go there’s a good chance another baby-moon is in our cards or will at least be needed in our cards before the baby gets here but still. Its a cabin in Branson and even though it isn’t far from home, my mind is going a million miles away. So be warned now – if your going to call me over the weekend, it better be important. Otherwise, I don’t wanna talk to you. Anyways, we have a movie we are going to, a nice restaraunt and this cute little cabin on the lake so I think it will be a nice getaway. I’ve been really stressed lately with work and have stayed super busy so I need it and so does Robbie (wherever he is, bc he too has been difficult to reach today but thats a whole other rant)

I guess that leads me to a funny quote that I read off of that blog I’ve been a little to obsessed with lately…. This is pulled from the post titled 10 things to never say to a pregnant woman:

“8. “Was this an accident?” A woman’s reply to this should always be “suck my dick.” It’s a nice, clean, confusing retort for someone that is rude enough to ask this kind of question.”

Bahahaha yep, I don’t see the clean in that retort but that’s about how I’m feeling right now. See the post here:

Well,
This is a new category, which I’m going to try to expand on my writing a little bit other than just talking about myself and my life because most people probably don’t give a crap about that. I read a blog the other day and this is actually the reason I decided I wanted to get back into this. It’s called “pregnant chicken”. It’s this married mother of two boys who live in Seattle and cusses a lot. Which I have to admit, I admire her for. Not that cussing is good but she doesn’t really filter herself and I definitely do. If you know me very well, you know I can potentially curse like a sailor but I’ve learned to filter myself having a 4-year-old around. But yeah, she says what she thinks and I wish I could be a little more like that sometimes but I’m too nice and worry about offending people so I am very careful with what I say. Anyways this cussing super-mom just really impresses me with the stories and such that she has. I like reading what she says because well a) I’m pregnant and a lot of her articles pertain to me and b) when I read her articles and even her “about me” I feel like I’m talking to my friend and not reading a stranger’s blog. The article that attracted me originally was the Happily After Giving Birth: 10 Things They Don’t tell you article. You can check it out by clicking the link.
My favorite tip from that article is this one and I quote:

“6. Breastfeeding might be difficult. If you choose to breastfeed your baby, be prepared for a little bit of work. Not everybody has a smooth ride (me included) and it can be anything the soft, bonding vignettes they plaster all over “Breast is Best” pamphlets. The good news is once you’re over the hump it’s pretty maintenance free and you can never forget your baby’s lunch on the counter. If you have an easy time of it, awesome! Don’t brag though, you’re liable to be beaten to death with Bugaboo strollers by hormonal mothers in the park.”
The reason I love this one is because of the stigma that follows breastfeeding. So many happily breastfeeding mothers like to judge the ones who didn’t do it or even the ones who tried and were unsuccessful.
To elaborate a little further on her opinion of the subject I read the article August is BreastFeeding Awareness Month. And I quote again “I’m sure you’re well aware that some people are very passionate about breastfeeding and I think that’s great, however, what I don’t find great is making someone feel shitty because they aren’t breastfeeding. If you can do it, go for it, if you can’t, no worries.”
I love her opinion on this because obviously, she successfully breastfed after a difficult time. But what she is saying here is to not judge those who can’t. And don’t beat yourself up if your one of those who can’t. If any of you reading were very close to me during Anna’s first few days you remember how I struggled. The very first time, she latched on with no problem and I thought I was a pro. However, there’s a little thing called nipple confusion and also a little thing called hormones. After the second time, the neo-natologist ordered me to supplement Anna’s feeding with formula because my milk hadn’t come in yet and she was nearly a 9 lb baby. The next thing I know, the nursery was shoving binkies and bottles in her mouth every time she would cry when they had her. This ticked me off a)because she should have been with me in the first place, they would take her for 3 hours at a time for bathing and tests and promise to have her back in 45 minutes. b)and because the binkies had NOTHING to do with her nutritional well-being. So mama had a c-section and the second I learned to scoot myself to the nursery, I did and would go and get her during feeding times. But something changed. Once she had that bottle from nurses and not me, she didn’t want to latch on. Getting milk from the bottle was just way too easy and she wasn’t willing to work for the breast milk anymore. So each feeding session would begin with her wrestling me, me crying and would end with me and a bottle, still crying because I felt like I failed as a mother. Lord, did I cry over everything, but especially that. When I got home from the hospital my milk started coming in, my boobs got hard and I needed relief. So I got a breast pump. Thinking the milk would come out like a water spicket. Did it? NO! I pumped for an hour and a half and I got a half oz. A HALF oz. Anna was eating 3 ounces every 3 hours at that time. So I packed up my pump, I went to the store and I stocked up on Enfamil Lipil. For 3 days I breastfed with no milk for her, just the clear stuff they get initially for immunity. And you know what? Anna didn’t run her first fever until the age of 2. So, I’m glad I did what I was able and this time— maybe I can get a little farther with the support of the nursery.

Anyways, she has a lot of great articles and if nothing else you’ll get a laugh and maybe learn something too. You should check her out. Til next time!

I haven’t written a blog since August like tenth. So there has been a lot that’s happened. The obvious of what has happened is that I got a new blog completely. Why? Well a couple of reasons. First – my blog’s name was Our Life According to Jax. What is in a name? Shouldn’t a name apply to you? Well unfortunately my last blog had our blue heeler’s name on it. Our blue heeler, Jax. Jax got a little bigger than planned and in turn forced us to give him up to a nice family in High Point, Missouri. So – I didn’t feel it appropriate to have his name in my blog name any longer. Coming up with a name for a blog is not easy stuff, I’m telling you! I played with a lot of names but I figured since this is my blog the name should reflect me. My two favorite things right now – my grey suede boots and my milkshakes, haha. Not only that, but a milkshake. What does it take to make a milkshake? Well minimally it takes some type of milk based product, and usually some ice cream. But you can add so many things to it. Ovaltine, chocolate syrup, banana’s, strawberries, even sprinkles. Well, my family is kinda like a milkshake. My family as in 3+1 of us. There’s Me, who I would say is probably the milk. I’m the base of the family that kinda keeps everyone else in line, then you’ve got the ice cream, my daughter, the ice cream comes second (she happens to come first) and add’s the sweet part that you can’t be without. Anna’s the ice cream. Then you’ve got Robbie. I’d call Robbie the malt flavor, the part that brings the whole thing together and gives all the support to the ice cream and the milk. Then of course you got the sprinkles. The part that really may not even be noticed other than appearance right now but later, you’ll notice they are there once you start eating them. The sprinkles – is the baby. To those of you who are reading and don’t know, Robbie and I are expecting my second child and his first late March of next year. The reason we all make such a tasty milkshake is because we’re all mixed together even though we didn’t originate in the same place. So there’s the reason for my name.

Well, what have we been up to since August 10th? It’s only been, what about 38 days so nearly 8 weeks. Well, as I said above, I’m pregnant. With my second child and I couldn’t be happier. You know what question I love? Are you getting married? No. Why does that have to be a consequence of pregnancy? Am I getting married someday? Yeah, I’m sure I will! Am I marrying Robbie? Yes! I’m sure I will. But how can we live in a world where things so widely unaccepted years ago like gay marriage and partial birth abortions are accepted by people but when you get pregnant- head to the chapel! I’m not saying domestic partnerships and partial birth abortions are equal because they are not. I am completely ok with gay marriage and in no way support abortion. I’m just saying, in a world full of liberalism and freaking Obama, why would a liberal person tell someone they need to get married before having birthed the baby they conceived pre-engagment or pre-wedding if they aren’t ready to say I do? Does it have to do with commitment? No. Not for me. First of all, I don’t want to walk my fat pregnant ass down an aisle while our friends and family whisper about our motives. Second of all, I’ve been divorced. I’m not in a rush. I want my wedding to be beautiful and country. I will never stand in front of a judge and say “I do” again. I want to save the ridiculous amounts of money it takes to buy the exact dress I want, I want the wedding I want and dreamed of and everyone knows they don’t come cheap! I want us both to have the rings that although won’t be massive rocks they will be the ones we want to wear for the rest of our lives. Among everything else, I just don’t want the stigma. I would marry Robbie tomorrow. I committed to loving him a long time ago and that didn’t require a ring or a piece of paper. I know I’ll be with him for life and eventually, we will put that down on a contract so if I ever go into a coma he can decide to pull the plug or let me live. But right now, we love each other and we don’t have to do the stereotypical thing and get married right now. So, if you were wondering, wonder no more! I am not marrying Robbie right now and my dad isn’t chasing him with a shotgun either. Another question I get is did I want this baby, was it on purpose? Well —- the long and short of it, It’s really noones business if I wanted, want it or if I got pregnant on purpose. Assume what you will. But first, ask yourself this. Aren’t we two consenting adults who could choose or not choose to use birth control? Also ask yourself, would two people unexcited plaster things about their pregnancy all over facebook and discuss with it friends and family in an excited manor? So – if you have to ask, don’t. Figure it out yourself. I’ve been down this road before. I’m a smart girl with a brain. Robbie’s a smart boy with a brain and a beard. You can think what you want with that, but Robbie and I both knew the outcome of our lifestyle and once we found out, we felt the way we feel. So now that we got that awkward questions out of the way….

In other news Anna has begun swimming lessons. Tonight is her 5th of 8th lesson and I have to say, last week she took a leap! She went from like refusing to let go to swimming around with no help, I can’t wait to see the advances she takes today. She really does amaze me. As a mother, I love the feeling of standing back and letting her fly. As difficult is it is at times, it’s worth it and totally amazing.

Also I got a new car! Thanks to Robbie’s credit and his uncanny ability to haggle. We got it for a good price and it’s such a cute little car! A Kia Soul and I love it. We got it right after our first ultrasound. We traded in my old crappy Saturn that was having some pretty dangerous problems. I personally think after seeing that baby on the screen, the cargo just got more precious but Robbie will never admit that to me. Although its a standard, and I never thought I’d learn to make it…. well, move. I love it and I actually love driving it. Not to mention I am proud of myself for learning because that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever learned.

Other than that and my almost 12 week along pregnancy, that’s about all that’s been going on. Look back for frequent updates. I really am gonna try to keep this up, tata for now!